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I’ve been reading a lot of post-mortems about Super Tuesday, mostly about how our only realistic choices for president now consist of three 70-something white men.

As a feminist, I’m sad to see that, at least for this election, the road to the White House has ended for the last of several female candidates who would have made strong Democratic nominees and effective presidents. Media pundits and voters failed to support Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, so we’ve lost our chance to elect a woman as president in the centennial year of women’s suffrage.

Here’s what’s particularly depressing: We set a very high bar for women, but four years ago, Donald Trump, whose greatest accomplishment was to read the words “You’re fired!” from a teleprompter, received enough votes for an Electoral College victory. And he just might get elected again.

No, Hillary Clinton wasn’t perfect, but she was miles closer to it than Trump. Her message was measured and sensible, rather than crazy, inane and divisive. She worked hard, she studied the issues and she would have put in a team of experts to advise her on anything she wouldn’t have known. And I’m 100 percent sure that she would have thought before she tweeted.

So what has the Democratic primary taught us so far? It’s very clear that women hardly come out in droves to vote for women, at least those running for president. Maybe some honestly believe, for reasons I can’t fathom, that any man would do better, but I think most were just terrified of a repeat of 2016 and feared sexism would topple a female candidate.

A sad prophecy then became self-fulfilling.

But there’s an even more painful lesson from this primary, and our leaders need to heed it.

My husband reminded me that 20 years ago, the Supreme Court had to pick the president of the United States because the election was close and a Florida county screwed up. (Hopefully no one needs a reminder that the court’s choice turned out to be a president who pushed us into a groundless war and who stood by while we sank into the worst recession since the Great Depression.)

The mishaps — or worse — that some voters had to endure so far this year should sound a clear warning of the mess we could face in November.

First there was the disastrous Iowa caucus vote that no one is absolutely sure about. Then on Super Tuesday, long lines led to long wait times in California and Texas — up to three hours in Los Angeles and up to seven in Harris County, which includes Houston.

How many would-be voters just gave up and went home or back to work before they reached the entrance to their polling place?

The problems in Iowa and California both stemmed from major problems with new voting systems. I’m crossing my fingers that they will get fixed immediately.

Technology was also blamed for the Texas situation, although unexpectedly high turnout also played a role. And in Houston, Republicans resisted holding an open primary, where voters from both parties could cast their ballots on the same machine. Instead, Republicans and Democrats each were allocated the same number of machines, even though Democrats, with a contested presidential primary, drew far more voters.

Texas also has something of a taint to it. Since the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, hundreds of polling places have been closed there, especially in neighborhoods with growing black and Latino populations.

We don’t know what to look forward to in states like Georgia, whose Republican secretary of state, Brian Kemp, blatantly suppressed the African-American vote to ensure his victory in the 2018 gubernatorial race.

Whether obstacles to voting stem from bad technology or outright suppression, they’re a threat to democracy that we can’t afford. If you must spend hours in line at the polls, you’d be inclined to decide next time that it just isn’t worth the trouble because the system is rigged anyway.

That in turn paves the way for more bad candidates to cruise into office — and perhaps rig the system beyond repair.

(Von Ahn is co-chair of Schuylkill Indivisible, but the opinions expressed here are her own)

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